I gave up on Armytek modding.

That as far as I got on my Prime.

Being brass you can carefully upend both of the ends and presumably pull out the star. Precision work with a small diameter steel rod, or even dentist tools.
Assuming its not then glued you can remove it. If it is glued you may have to break it
If the rivets were not there would the reflector hold it in place (or you can add glue later as well).

You could pull it apart but ruin the light, or you may be ale to replace without a hitch or something in between, is it worth the risk?

Sorry mate, no experience. My prime A1 didn’t have the rivets. I would disconnect the leads first and try with a pick, sharpened small screwdriver, or knife to pry up the edges of the rivets. It doesn’t matter if they are destroyed if you have thermal epoxy or if the reflector/optic presses down on the star..

I don’t remember scraping any glue from the star or flashlight, so it must have been only thermal paste. I reflowed a warmer XM-L2 onto the stock star and replaced the paste with what I have.

The_Driver wrote:

eebowler wrote:

Sorry mate, no experience. My prime A1 didn’t have the rivets. I would disconnect the leads first and try with a pick, sharpened small screwdriver, or knife to pry up the edges of the rivets. It doesn’t matter if they are destroyed if you have thermal epoxy or if the reflector/optic presses down on the star..

Was your PCB glued? If so, how did you remove it?

No it’s not glued. AT only use sticky thermal paste. You can check it yourself, the MCPCB can slide sideways a bit. I will mod mine as well as soon as I got some left over 219C
AT use rivets to make it more durable (and harder for us). I love this Prime very much, slim and durable except the too stiff switch.

- Clemence

The_Driver wrote:

Clemence, you were able to mod your light with The rivets?

No, I was waiting for you to do it first
But it seems it’s the other way around now
Will try it today

Here you go….
Not the prettiest surgery, but that was a quick easy job. Sacrificed a small flat screwdriver, sharpened to blade

OK, mr. Driver, it’s your turn now

Cheers,
Clemence

Very nice result! Much tighter beam, definitely great tint, and of course lower lumen output. But you won’t want to get back to those ugly XPL!

It’s like upgrading to XPL HI with all the benefit of 9050 219C – Lossless swap!

Will post the result + beamshots tonight

Sorry guys, I couldn’t find the Bear

The_Driver wrote:

Indeed “premium” The difference in hotspot size does seem noticeable though…

Couldn’t resist not to add “premium” label next to the original “premium” branding. Why AT uses premium word for such a greenium stuff?

- Clemence

Anyone mod a wizard or tiara? Similar construction?

Ask Dale here in BLF. He managed to pry open his Wizard. Link: http://budgetlightforum.com/comment/1048158#comment-1048158
The trick is how to remove the fit pressed bezel. Some suggest to freeze it, while I prefer to heat it up to 200C.

I could NOT get my tiara C1 open. Even cut grooves in the bezel to turn with a steel ruler (too bendy) or force it with a hammer and screw driver and got nowhere. The ring might be press fit or shrunk fit? (where it is freezed and after heating up, expands tightly into place.)

Oh. That sucks. I’m wary of their xpl neutral. I’ve seen some pretty green neutral XPL,…

eebowler wrote:

I could NOT get my tiara C1 open. Even cut grooves in the bezel to turn with a steel ruler (too bendy) or force it with a hammer and screw driver and got nowhere. The ring might be press fit or shrunk fit? (where it is freezed and after heating up, expands tightly into place.)

To my understanding, heating expand most materials, and vice versa. With freezing as suggested by some member, you’ll only get it shrunk tighter. Al. has higher thermal expansion coefficient than SS (the bezel). Al. will also shrunk more than SS in cold. So heating is the way to go. The ideal case is to heat it up to a point where there’s no interference fit between aluminum and stainless – the bezel should fall off the headlamp. But….
Even though that most SMD should withstand leadfree soldering up to 260C for 30seconds (At least you know you’ll not ruin the components at that elevated temp), not many manufacturer use leadfree, you could make all the components fall off the board by heating up to 260C. Armytek seems to use 63/37 solder judging on the temp I used to de-solder the emitter (180C).
The PMMA optics used also rated only 120C. The red locktite will soften at 140C. The O-rings, button, and epoxy/silicone potting compound will probably much less than that.
100C is the safe side if you want to heat it without destroying all those low temp parts. Otherwise use your heat gun set to 250C.

I plan to make a contraption especially just to remove the bezel from all those press fitted flashlights. Once we get a good grip on it, adding more heat should make things easier.

- Clemence

Gunga wrote:

Oh. That sucks. I’m wary of their xpl neutral. I’ve seen some pretty green neutral XPL,…

No girls are pretty when they’re green

Was yours neutral?

Edit: just saw that it was green. I mean cool.

Gunga wrote:

Was yours neutral?

Edit: just saw that it was green. I mean cool.

I modded my WGW Prime. It was good ONLY in turbo mode. Lower modes = more green.
I never really use the CGW, too harsh to the eye for most uses. Also gives you eerie horror movie feeling if used in the foggy woods.

Edit: WGW = Warm Green White; CGW = Cool Green White

Gunga wrote:

Was yours neutral?

Edit: just saw that it was green. I mean cool.

Before modded:

I use EXACTLY the same emitter tested/pictured here:

Any one tried the tiara c1 warm xml2 high cri? I don’t trust the warm xpl they use.

Hi Driver,

Have you succeeded? I’ve done several more mods with success (only minor scratches on the PCB). Once you get it, it’s fairly easy. I got 6 more modification orders for Tiaras and Primes. Still waiting for the stuff to arrive.

- Clemence